Now you hear about Anna Hazares fasting until death and most of us were not aware who

is Anna Hazare and what is this Lokpal Bill about? ANNA HAZARE (Dr.Kisan Baburao Hazare) is a social activist born on 15th June 1938 and he is known to develop a model village at Ahmednagar in Maharashtra called Ralegan Siddhi and is also a recipient of Padma Bhushan in 1992 for his contributions. Anna Hazare is a personality who has taken the best effort to put some bars on corruption in India. These days we see lots of scams coming up, but do we hear much about the punishments and actions being taken against these corrupt bureaucrats and politicians? No, not much, reason is that the people doing the investigation against such allegations are the people who are appointed by the same people who are involved in these scams. Anna Hazare is again the person who was behind the Right to Information Act (RTI Act). LOCKPAL BILL The Lokpal is a proposed body to be enacted as a law by Parliament, which will be headed by a chairperson who is or was a Chief Justice of India and eight other members. The basic idea of the Lokpal is borrowed from the office of the ombudsman in other countries. It provides for filing complaints of corruption against ministers and members of parliament with the ombudsman. The first lokpal bill was passed in the 4th Lok Sabha in 1969 but could not get through in Rajya Sabha, subsequently, Lokpal bills were introduced in 1971, 1977, 1985, 1989, 1996, 1998, 2001, and 2005 and in 2008, yet they were never passed. The lokpal bill was visualised as the watchdog institution or ministerial probity. Broadly the provisions of different bills empowered the Lokpal to investigate corruption cases against political persons at the central level. Main objective of the bill is to provide speedy, cheaper form of justice to people. In the proposed system lokpal will have complete powers to dismiss a corrupt official.

Salient features of Jan Lokpal Bill

An institution called LOKPAL at the centre and LOKAYUKTA in each state will be set up Like Supreme Court and Election Commission, they will be completely independent of the governments. No minister or bureaucrat will be able to influence their investigations. Cases against corrupt people will not linger on for years anymore: Investigations in any case will have to be completed in one year. Trial should be completed in next one year so that the corrupt politician, officer or judge is sent to jail within two years. The loss that a corrupt person caused to the government will be recovered at the time of conviction. How will it help a common citizen: If any work of any citizen is not done in prescribed time in any government office, Lokpal will impose financial penalty on guilty officers, which will be given as compensation to the complainant. So, you could approach Lokpal if your ration card or passport or voter card is not being made or if police is not registering your case or any other work is not being done in prescribed time. Lokpal will have to get it done in a months time. You could also report any case of corruption to Lokpal like ration being siphoned off, poor quality roads been constructed or panchayat funds being siphoned off. Lokpal will have to complete its investigations in a year, trial will be over in next one year and the guilty will go to jail within two years. But wont the government appoint corrupt and weak people as Lokpal members? That wont be possible because its members will be selected by judges, citizens and constitutional authorities and not by politicians, through a completely transparent and participatory process. What if some officer in Lokpal becomes corrupt? The entire functioning of Lokpal/ Lokayukta will be completely transparent. Any complaint against any officer of Lokpal shall be investigated and the officer dismissed within two months. What will happen to existing anti-corruption agencies? CVC, departmental vigilance and anti-corruption branch of CBI will be merged into Lokpal. Lokpal will have complete powers and machinery to independently investigate and prosecute any officer, judge or politician. It will be the duty of the Lokpal to provide protection to those who are being victimized for raising their voice against corruption.

How Lokpal works?, Advantage of Lokpal Bill

The Lokpal will be a three-member body with a chairperson who is or was a chief justice or Supreme Court judge, and two members who are or have been high courts judges or chief justices. Implementation of the Lokpal bill will hopefully reduce corruption in India. The basic idea of the Lokpal is borrowed from the office of the ombudsman in other countries. It provides for filing complaints of corruption against the prime minister, other ministers and members of parliament with the ombudsman. Anyone, except for a public servant, can file a complaint and the Lokpal has to complete the inquiry within six months.

Major Disadvantages of Lokpal Bill

1. This is not a mature bill, still lot many open issues. 2. Huge burden on government to run this, it needs huge money to manage the head counts. 3. I dont understand why it needs 1 year for decision and another 1 year for the punishment. 4. How someone can guarantee there will be No minister or bureaucrat influence on their investigations. 5. How can it be assured that Lokpal members are not corrupted? Dont we have corrupted judges, citizens and constitutional authorities, who says only the politicians are corrupted?

What are the loopholes of the Lokpal Bill by the Government

According to the current version of Lokpal Bill, Lokpal will not have any power to either initiate action suo motu in any case or even receive complaints of corruption from public. This is making the Lokpal bill useless. But according to the Jan Lokpal Bill, full powers to initiate investigations suo motu in any case and also to directly entertain complaints from the public. This is something very important and needs to be addressed by the Government and we see most of the political parties finding this as a threat to them. The Government proposed Lokpal bill does wants the Lokpal to be advisory body and just forward the complaints to the recepective department and does not have any right to register and FIR or police powers. This bill not gives power to the Lokpal to do any investigation against the Prime Minister, which deals with foreign affairs, security and defence and also no jurisdiction over bureaucrats and government officers. These are the major lacking of the current version with the Government, but we need a Jan Lokpal bill which is addressing the above mentioned issues. Dosupport for this bill and try your best to force the Government to do it for us. We are the people who have put them on to rule the country and they will have to do it for us.